American Airlines Says Jail
Police Say No
Media Reflects Progress

by Marc Maurer

How important is discrimination to
people who practice it? How far will an
individual or a company go to preserve a
feeling of superiority over others? At
what point will the police say no?
On Sunday, December 15, 1985, four
Oregon Federationists (Matt Millspaugh,
Diane Hayes, Ken Harrington, and Shelly
Cather) boarded an American Airlines
plane in Dallas to fly to Portland.
They took their assigned seats (exit
row) and were ordered to move. They
declined.

American officials first pleaded, then
blustered. When this failed, they
called the police to have the Federationists
arrested. But the word is
getting around. The Jacobson case
(settled in favor of the blind a few
months ago in Louisville) is having its
effect. The police refused to do the
airline's dirty work. Although the
police were apologetic they declined to
take the Federationists into custody.
They said no.

American was now faced with the embarrassing
alternative of backing down or
coming up with another solution. They
found another solution, but it was costly--probably
in more ways than one.

Since the airline could not have the
four Federationists arrested, it evacuated
all passengers from the plane and
started over. Another plane was found
which had seats with the same numbers
but not in an emergency row. The Federationists
were boarded with the rest
of the passengers, keeping their original
seat numbers and flying on to Portland
without further major incident.

It was a childish (and also an expensive)
demonstration by American, and it
got them nowhere. Passengers were delayed;
the airline proved no point; and
they looked worse than if they had
graciously accepted the inevitable. But
prejudice dies hard, and attitudes
change slowly. The incident was reported
in the Portland Oregonian Tuesday, December 17, 1985:

Protesters
Delay Flight To Portland

By Elizabeth Coonrod
of The Oregonian Staff

Four members of a national advocacy
group for the blind refused to give up
their seats near an emergency exit on a
Dallas-to-Portland flight Sunday night
in protest of the airline's attempts to
move them.

Their refusal to move from the assigned
seats caused American Airlines to
transfer all 110 passengers to another
flight and delayed passengers' arrival
in Portland for more than two hours.
No one was arrested, but the protesters'
action was the latest in a
series of incidents during the past 13
months in which blind passengers have
protested airline policies that restrict
seating for the handicapped.

"We didn't ask to be assigned those
seats, but there was no reason for us to
move," said Dianne Hayes, a Portland
resident and President of the Portland
chapter of the National Federation of
the Blind.

"They just came on board and told us
we weren't allowed to sit there," said
Hayes, who is legally blind and had a
guide dog with her.

Hayes, Matt Millspaugh, Ken Harrington
and Shelley Cather (who is sighted) all
are members of the National Federation
of the Blind and were returning to Portland
after a demonstration in Little
Rock, Arkansas.

Millspaugh said he knew how to use the
emergency exit and would have shown the
airline authorities had they asked him.
Millspaugh compared the group's situation
to that of any other individuals
asserting their rights.

"If a woman or a black person were
harassed and asked to sit in the first
row or move back 10 rows, they shouldn't
have to do it," he said.
Joe Stroop, manager of external communications
for American Airlines in
Dallas, Texas, said the three blind
people boarded the plane Sunday night
with seat passes they obtained prior to
their arrival at the airport.

"We asked them to move, and they refused,"
he said, adding that American's
regulations state that no person whose
condition might hinder speedy evacuation
is allowed to sit on the inside, in
front, or behind the seats next to a
wing emergency exit.

The airline asked the airport Department
of Public Safety officers to remove
the three, who refused, Stroop said.
"So we decided to substitute a different
type of aircraft where they could
sit in their same assigned seat (and not
be near an exergency exit," he said.
American's policy has been approved by
the Federal Aviation Administration."
This is how it was reported by the
Portland Oregonian, and there was more
to come. In an editorial on Monday,
December 23, 1985, the paper said:

Who's Blind To What

On first impression, the protests of
some blind airline passengers over not
being allowed to sit near emergency exit
doors seem pointless. Obviously, one
assumes, blind passengers are not as
able as sighted ones to cope with an
emergency.

Why "obviously?"

That is the question that underlies
the resentment of some blind persons
over their treatment by some airlines-- treatment based on the often misguided
assumption that the blind are unable to
perform needed tasks on their own.
The National Federation of the Blind
argues that airlines have not compiled
convincing evidence that blind passengers
are less able than typical sighted
ones to open an emergency exit door and
jump out of the airplane. The less
militant American Council of the Blind
believes there is a safety factor and
does not object to policies preventing
blind persons from sitting next to over
wing exits.

At least one airline agrees with the
Federation. Frontier Airlines has adopted
a policy that says that blind and
deaf passengers are not to be considered
handicapped and are not restricted as to
where they may sit.

A Frontier Airlines spokesman told the
Oregonian that evacuation tests and
actual emergencies led to the conclusion
that blind passengers pose no special
problem compared with sighted passengers
also unused to functioning in an emergency.
Also, he noted, most evacuation
tests are run in darkened hangers with
some exits blocked. In those conditions--with
smoke or darkness making
it impossible to see--persons used to
not seeing could cope better than
sighted passengers.

Most airlines, however, continue to
have rules prohibiting blind, infirm,
obese and pregnant persons or young
children from sitting next to the emergency
exits. Recently, an American
Airlines Dallas-to-Portland flight was
delayed more than two hours when blind
pasengers refused to give up their assigned
seats near an emergency exit.

The Federation claims that being asked
to change seats embarrasses the blind
passenger, sends a false signal of helplessness,
and inconveniences other passengers--all
without need. American
Airlines oficials, however, contend that
the regulation is based on a valid concern
for safety of all passengers. The
Federal Aviation Administration has left
the matter up to individual airlines.

It is pointless for the FAA to hang
back and let the dispute fester. Either
there is a valid safety concern here or
there isn't. The Frontier Airlines
example suggests that the answer is not
as clear-cut as other airlines assume.
The obvious next step is to conduct
further evacuation tests with disinterested
evaluators to lay the groundwork
for an informed, factually based regulation
reflecting the true--not assumed
capabilities of blind travelers.
Where blind people sit on an airplane
is not the basic issue here. Rather, it
is the soundness of the judgments that
are made about what people can and cannot
do.